Monday, July 25, 2011

If you read your Constitution, you’ll find that Congress is responsible for the debts, the spending, and the taxes, not the President.

The President can ask for a budget, but it's up to Congress to appropriate the money. All debts and deficits that have accrued have originated in Congress. All taxes that are in place originated in Congress.

They made the laws and it's up to them to change the laws if they want to. That's where the debate starts. Right now they passed a budget that spends more money than we have and they need to approve borrowing that money or change the law that they made that requires the money.

They need to sit down and decide which part of the budget that they passed shouldn't have been passed. It's up to them to change the law or to borrow the money. The question is: which law and which funding is to be changed.

When the little boys, inside the men, decide to walk out on meaningful talks it's like saying “It's MY ball and I'm taking it home”. It's hard to debate the issues with only one debater. Any agreement made cannot be all one sided, compromise is necessary to reach a workable solution.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

From the White House Blog 07/16/2011:
One quote stuck with me: “the nature of our democracy and the nature of our politics is to marry principle to a political process that means you don't get 100% of what you want.”
This is a President who believes searching for common ground is the right way to approach solving our problems.

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Over the years I have been involved in many construction project negotiations. What the President says is a good philosophy to keep to himself for the final decision, but going into the process of negotiations, he needs to draw a firm line from which he initially isn't prepared to go further. If you go into negotiations offering immediate sacrifices, the opponent will push further and further to force more compromises.

If you want to settle for a one dollar increase you ask for two and the opponent asks for none so that you can both win with an agreement of one dollar. If you start at one, the opponent will assume that you are willing to settle for half that or less and won't agree to the one.

The President has started negotiations with the House and Senate for health care and budget reconciliation from what he hopes is his final settlement and naturally the opposition will reject this and try for a lower settlement.

President Obama is sometimes too nice of a guy and too willing to compromise at the beginning. He definitely needs to present a firmer stance and show that he is not that easy to manipulate. We need him to be our strong leader and stand up for us low and middle class voters against the power and finances of the wealthy.